Build Muscle And Get Ripped

Ignore the steroids and the hundreds of articles on muscle gain, because we’re here to show you the real way to build muscle and get ripped fast.

As you probably know by now with health and fitness, there are thousands of contradictions, thousands of ideas, and thousands of perspectives. However, let us help you by sticking to the basic, and the best, ways to achieve your fitness goals. Now, there’s no immediate way to get washboard abs and arms that could crush a bear, but there are ways you can boost the effectiveness of your gym session, and this will help speed up how long it takes to get ripped.

Diet to Get Ripped

It’s an age old saying, but ‘you are what you eat’ has an annoying ring of truth to it, especially when it comes to your fitness. Maintaining a balanced diet is vital if you want to bulk up in the right way. Although it’s not always easy to plan meals when you’re trying to slim down and on top of that gain muscle, there are a few key foods that you should keep in mind when you’re training.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dr Penrod

Fish: There’s a whole list of benefits to eating fish, but the main things to focus on when you’re trying to bulk up is that it helps increase testosterone, lowers body fat, and enables easier joint movement. It’s also a strong source of protein and if you go with something fresh like wild salmon, you’ll gain a good helping on omega-3 fatty acids.

Eggs: Again we’re dealing with protein here, and eggs are a great provider. They’re also high in vitamins E, D and A, and are easy to incorporate into your meals.

Greek yogurt: High in calcium and protein, and helps keep muscles on the go by providing them with a stream of amino acids.

Greens: We’re talking spinach, kale, chard and all those other food that get called ‘rabbit food’ 80% of the time. These are a great source of iron, fibre, vitamins and yes, again, protein.

Flaxseeds: These will probably end up stuck in your teeth at least once a week, but with the benefits that come with them, it’ll be worth it. Flaxseeds are great for your heart, they aid in fat burning, keep your mood up, which is vital for that rainy walk to the gym, and are an easy source or omega-3 fatty acids.

Water: Seems like a no brainer, but something as simple as replacing your morning coffee with a glass of water (I know, not easy to do) is going to drastically help replace that caffeine with clean hydration, ensuring that you stay alert without that crash mid afternoon. Drinking between 2 to 3 litres of water a day is ideal, and will help keep you full, meaning you’ll be less likely to snack on unhealthy alternatives.

As you can see, there’s a lot of protein heavy foods there. Protein is rich in amino acids, which are vital in building, repairing and maintaining muscles. If you didn’t have amino acids you essentially wouldn’t be able to build up muscle, which explains why protein shakes are so popular with gym goers.

Best Supplements to Get Ripped

Now it’s important to eat right if you plan on bulking up, but it’s not always easy to get all the vitamins and minerals you need just from your meals. Taking additional supplements can help boost your body’s levels, and prevent you from falling short on the necessary nutrients you need. It’s important to have a range of vitamins to stay healthy, but if we’re talking specifically building muscles, these are the supplements you should think about investing in.

PHOTO CREDIT: Gym Hog

Whey Protein Powder: Yep, back to protein, but it really is important when you’re working out. Protein powder can be more useful than protein heavy foods before and after a workout simply because it digests so much faster. Taking some of this 30 minutes before a workout is going to noticeably improve muscle growth.

Creatine: Creatine is made from three amino acids and increases the amount of fast energy in your muscles. This not only gets you that little but closer to being like Usain Bolt, and allows you to run and lift more in your normal workouts.

Beta-alanine: It’s a common story – you start a work out, get into the swing on things, and then 20 minutes in you’re exhausted and your muscles are dead. This is because during exercise we accumulate a large amount of hydrogen, which then causes our pH levels to drop, which ends with us falling off the treadmill. Beta-alanine however helps increase the body’s levels of carnosine, which helps delay the build up of hydrogen, and therefore allows our workouts to go on for longer.

Glutamine: Glutamine has been attributed in helping slow down muscle breakage, and improves your strength threshold, allowing you do to high intensity workouts for longer.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

You might have heard of this form of workout, and over the years it’s gained increasing popularity, especially for men who want a workout, but don’t have a whole lot of time on their hands. The general idea of HIIT training is that during your intensive workout your body can’t provide enough oxygen to your muscles, meaning that after you’ve finished your workout your body is still working to get back to normal. This means you’re still burning fat even after you’ve stopped exercising.

PHOTO CREDIT: Paleo Hacks

There are a tonne of workouts online, and the best thing about most of them is that you can easily get ripped at home, meaning you can avoid those gym fees. It’s important to keep your exercise super intensive (thus the name), so don’t run – sprint, and make sure you’re not doing this for any longer than 45 seconds to avoid overworking your muscles.

How to Get Ripped Without Weights

If you’re the type who does bodyweight training, or even HIIT, then you’ll know that although these are great workouts, and will help on your journey on how to get shredded, you can’t rely on them alone. In order for your muscles to grow they need to be under a high amount of resistance, and the obvious answer is to train them up with weights.

However if you don’t the time to get to the gym, or you’re just not a fan of working out in public, there are ways to build muscle without the use of weights. Using your own body as a weight is an simple, yet still demanding way of training your muscles, and the best way to exercise if you’re wondering how to get ripped at home.

Squats, push ups, chin ups and pull ups are the easiest ways to gain muscle without using weights, and you can easily vary the intensity of your workout depending on how long you hold a position for and the angles you perform them at.

How to Get Ripped With Weights

So there are a number of ways you can build muscle without weights, but of course getting a few dumbbells is probably going to help as well. You don’t need fancy equipment to get results, and as long as you have three or four different weight dumbbells you can slowly progress your workout routine to ensure you’re always challenging yourself.

There are numerous workouts you can do to train up every part of your body with weights, and as long as you have a little space to stretch out, there’s no reason you can’t do these exercises at home.

How to Get Ripped in a Month

Everyone knows that a lot of those fitness transformation shots are phoney, but well, a lot of them aren’t. It is possible to go from skinny to shredded in a month, but it takes hard work and dedication. It’s hard to know how long it takes to get ripped, and some people will gain muscle faster than others – it can sometimes just depend on our bodies, but as long as you combine the right diet, supplements, exercises and attitude, then there’s no reason that you can’t reach your fitness goals.

Ripped Guys for Inspiration

There’s no reason not to have a little inspiration to get you started on your fitness journey, or help along the way if you’ve already started. These guys have bulked up for movie roles, photo shoots, or just because they wanted to, and the results have been impressive to say the least. Here’s five of the best, and most inspirational.

Chris Hemsworth

In order to gain the body needed for his role as Thor, Hemsworth went on an intensive workout and meal plan. It was important to stay lean in order to achieve the high energy stunts he needed to do, but he also had to look like, well, a god, so an increase in muscle mass was needed as well.

To achieve this Chris mixed weight lifting, boxing, cardio and Muay Thai, and focused on building up different parts of his body on different days of the week.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pinterest

Chris Pratt

Starting off as a chubby goof in TV series Parks and Recreation, Chris Pratt took on a memorable transformation for his role in Guardians of the Galaxy, and then later Jurassic World. Over the course of five months, Chris lost 60 pounds and gained a whole lot of muscle, training under the guidance of personal trainer Duffy Gaver.

The training started off with two months of body-building type exercises, followed by two more months of body-building and conditioning and finishing on a month of cardio. This balanced workout helped him achieve a ripped yet lean physique that worked perfectly for both of the roles.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pinterest

Tom Hardy

It’s hard to think of a role where Tom Hardy hasn’t been shredded, and for his best known roles in Warrior and The Dark Knight Rises, he had to gain some serious muscle, which it doesn’t look like he’s going to lose anytime soon.

His personal trainer helped with the intensive workouts by breaking them down into smaller sections, allowing Hardy to do four high energy workouts that lasted around 20 minutes. They worked on kick boxing, mixed up workout moves so the body wouldn’t become too used to them, and of course did a lot of weight training.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pinterest

Jason Momoa

Jason Momoa may have first hit the screens as a Baywatch guy, but he quickly transitioned to the bloodthirsty and powerfully build Karl Drogo, and will soon hit the screens as the reimagined version of Aqua Man – judging from the build of this dedicated actor, it’s not going to be the man in tights we know from the comics.

To achieve his built physique, Jason gets up at 5am most mornings, exercising the way you imagine Scottish highlanders to, such as running up and down mountains. He also does short, high level weight training, pushing himself to increase the intensity over time.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pinterest

Michael B Jordan

For his role in the latest Rocky movie, generally fairly trim Michael B Jordan got even more ripped, taking on the build of a professional boxer as Apollo Creed’s son. When training for this role he went back to basics, with traditional sit ups, weight training, speed rope for cardio, and of course a lot of boxing training.

His diet also helped build up his strong physique, with Jordan consuming six small meals a day, containing high protein foods such as eggs, chicken, leafy greens and not much else.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pinterest

Your Quick Guide on How to Build Muscle and Get Ripped Fast

Change your diet to high protein foods such as eggs and fish, and replace coffee with water.

Invest in supplements such as creatine and glutamine to help with your workouts.

Try High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) combined with traditional weight training, either with or without weights.

Look at celebrity workouts to see which one best suits your lifestyle and fitness level, then try and incorporate details into your own workouts.

On That Note…

So there you have it. Some of the fast and effective ways to build muscle and get ripped. It might not be a walk in the park, but with dedication, a healthy attitude to food and exercise, and some added supplements thrown in for good measure, you can get the body you want, and maintain it for years to come.